And TV regulator Ofcom received scores of complaints about contestants smoking on the show last year, the Government admitted.

Urging the watchdog to intervene to ban images of contestants lighting up from beign broadcast, Lord Storey told Tory Minister Lord Ashton: “I don’t know if you’re a regular watcher of Love Island but if you were to look at the ITV website it describes Love Island as ‘an emotional feast of lust and passion in the sun’.

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“Ofcom takes the protection of children and young people very seriously and that is why there are already specific restrictions on the portrayal of smoking on television.”

Viewers and parents with concerns about “smoking in this programme” could complain to the watchdog, he stressed.

Viewers and parents with concerns about “smoking in this programme” could complain to the watchdog, he stressed.

An ITV spokesman said: “The Islanders were only shown smoking if this happened at the same time as they were having conversations which we believed to be editorially important to the narrative of the show.”

Contestants were also offered e-cigarettes as an alternative.

An Ofcom spokeswoman said: “We take the protection of children and young people extremely seriously.

"We enforce robust broadcasting rules which restrict the portrayal of smoking within children’s programmes, those shown before the 9pm watershed and any other programme likely to be widely seen by under-18s.”